This past Saturday, the University’s women basketball team went head to head with a 16-5 Quinnipiac University at the MAC. A solid fan base came to support their third place Hawks take on the second place Bobcats.
With the playoffs approaching and number of games winding down, the Hawks realized how important it was to win this game. “As conference play continues and begins to wind down,” Coach Palmateer states, “Every game becomes exponentially more important. With the structure of our conference tournament, we are playing for home court advantage.”
Quinnipiac quickly took the lead in the first half and within four minutes, they had a five point advantage over the Hawks. With an official time-out called at 15:59, Monmouth was able to take a breath and prepare themselves for the next minutes of play.
The ladies scored the next four points bringing the score to a 7-6 game with 14:47 left on the clock. The Bobcats sunk the next basket but Monmouth retaliated quickly and the game stayed at a close score of 9-8. With a little less then 10 minutes left in the first half, Quinnipiac was to create a 10 point lead against Monmouth as the scoreboard read 22-12. The Bobcats increased their lead to a 14 point advantage over the Hawks within 20 seconds of creating the 10 point lead.
Monmouth slipped far behind Quinnipiac on the scoreboard and with 5:25 remaining, the Hawks were down by a whopping 18 points. But these next five minutes were Monmouth’s most impressive moments of the game. The Hawks scored the next 14 out of18 points with two three-pointers with junior guard Carly Thibault scoring one and junior forward Betsy Gadziala scoring the other. The score read Quinnipiac 38 Monmouth 30 by the half.
Spectators could only imagine what the team’s coaches were saying during half time. Both teams created many loose balls on the court and also many poor passes to their teams. Being unable to keep one’s hands on the ball was common in the game as well. But both teams did not let these elements of poor play bring them down.
During the first half, it appeared the only strategy in which Quinnipiac bettered at than Monmouth was creating space. The Bobcats were always looking around, always playing the offense not so much the defense, but through their play they could move all over as quick as they wanted which was difficult for the Hawks to cover.
The second half started out much like the first with Quinnipiac taking an early advantage over the Hawks. Within two minutes of the second half, Quinnipiac was able to score eight points while Monmouth stayed stationary bringing the game to another 16 point lead. Thankfully, Monmouth’s junior guard, Alysha Womack, was on the court and helped the Hawks gaining the next six points bringing their total points to 36. Unfortunately, the Bobcats also scored during this time period bringing their total points to 51 creating a 15 point difference.
At 13:08 Monmouth had a score of 40 while Quinnipiac had a score of 55 keeping the 15 point lead consistent. The Hawks could not recover from this deficit and fell even further behind the Bobcats. By 6:54, Quinnipiac was leading 68-48 creating the second 20 point lead of the game for the visitors. It was at the 5:02 mark when Quinnipiac’s guard, Felicia Barron, dribbled down the court right thru two of Monmouth’s defenders, making the game, 71-50 that the ladies took full force offense.
The Hawks were down 75-57 by the two minute warning but they were not done trying just yet. With merely seconds left in the game, the Hawks continued to move around the Bobcats. Sadly, their last minute effort was just not good enough and Monmouth fell to Quinnipiac 75-63. The bright side is that the Bobcats lead Monmouth by 20 points in some parts of the game but Monmouth was able to cut the final score down to a 12 point lead and in this case, the score truly does reflect the game at hand.
Through the game, it appeared as if the court was made for one reason: a Barron vs Womack show. By the time the first half was completed, the ladies posted similar statistics. Barron contributed a total of 15 points for her team, 10 of those coming within the first ten minutes. Womack has her team high as well at the half with 8 points. By the end of the game, Barron had a total of 23 points while Womack contributed 19 points for her team.
This head to head match up even impressed high authorities, such as the head coach for Monmouth, Coach Palmateer. “Barron was unbelievable. She can score in a variety of ways and we struggled to keep her under control,” Coach Palmateer continues, “We had several people defending her during the game and were never really ever able to contain her. Hats off to her. She had a great game.”
Coach Palmateer believes that her team do not have to tweak their game strategy for the upcoming game, they just have to alter their attack method.
“We plan on approaching Sacred Heart with the same game strategy. The difference needs to be in the execution of our strategy,” Coach Palmateer states, “We know we are a team that has to get it done on the defensive end. We have to come into every game the hungriest, most energetic team on the court. When we do that we are a tough team to beat.” The Hawks will next host first place Sacred Heart on Monday at the MAC at 7:00 pm.
PHOTO COURTESY of MU Photography
